Using information systems to make the world a better place: from ideals to action
The exhortation to bend more of our scholarly effort to improving the lot of the less privileged and underserved is not new; the call has gone forth in recent years from distinguished IS scholars such as Walsham, Watson, DeSouza and Galliers, amongst others. But the translation of “lofty ideals” into “actionable proposals”, and most important of all action itself, is still more honoured in the breach than the observance. So much of our research and teaching continues to be geared to the interests of commercial enterprises, and the more global the better. This inevitably conflates development narrowly with economic and material development, rather than forms of freedom and emancipation envisaged by humanist thinkers, such as Amartya Sen.

Shifting the moral agenda requires radical changes in the way we teach, how we carry out our research, how we engage with underserved communities, how we nurture the next generation of researchers, where we publish. Accomplishing profound reform to the over-arching institutional structures and incentive systems of the Academy, which ultimately shape the behaviour and practices of its denizens, is no easy task. But this is no reason for demurring; the time is ripe.

The theme of this year’s conference is a natural continuance of that of 2013, “Social Information Systems” which called for a broadening of our research away from the commercial environment to embrace more of the social sphere: health, social care, public services and community development. And with the growing imperative to demonstrate “research impact”, this broadening is vital, lest our work continues to benefit only those who need it least.

All forms of research addressing the theme will be welcome: empirical projects, innovative teaching developments, philosophical essays. As ever, papers addressing any aspect of our field are invited as well as those focused specifically on the Conference theme. Seeking to widen the community of engagement, we would like to hear from social and information scientists, moral philosophers, social media researchers, systems thinkers, software engineers, as well as those already committed to the field of Information Systems. To encourage further engagement, we have secured the opportunity for the best conference papers to be considered for a number of high quality journals, which includes the European Journal of Information Systems and the International Journal of Information Management.

The UKAIS conference is the premier academic event in the Information Systems calendar within the UK, and attracts leading scholars from the UK and overseas. The Academy was established in 1994 by leading UK academics in Information Systems. It is a charity, whose aims are to enhance the recognition and knowledge of IS within the UK, and to provide a forum for discussing issues in IS teaching and research. UKAIS continues to recognise the importance of including practitioners in its work.

This year's conference will once again be held in the beautiful city of Oxford, and will be situated in one of Oxford University’s atmospheric colleges, St Catherine’s College which is near the centre of the city.

*** UKAIS 2014 will be a fully refereed conference using a blind refereeing process of noted figures in the IS field ***

Conference Programme Chairs:
Professor David Wastell (Nottingham University Business School)
Professor David Wainwright (Information Sciences, Northumbria University)
Dr Laurence Brooks (Information Systems and Computing, Brunel University)

Organizing Committee Conference Organizing Committee:
Dr Diana Limburg (Oxford Brookes University Business School - PhD Consortium)
Dr Rachel Mclean (Digital Marketing, Liverpool John Moores University – PhD Consortium)
Abigail Hopkins, (Conference Administrator - UKAIS2014@gmail.com)

Conference Programme and Review Committee:
David Brown, Lancaster University, Melissa Cole, Buckingham University, Antonio Cordella, London School of Economics, Sharon Cox, Birmingham City University, Sue Childs, Northumbria University, Yogesh Dwivedi, University of Swansea, Liz Daniel, Open University, Neil Doherty, Loughborough University, Helen Edwards, University of Sunderland, Amany Elbana, Royal Holloway, Guy Fitzgerald, Loughborough University, Joy Garfield, University of Worcester, Ray Hackney, Brunel University, Stephen Harwood, Edinburgh University, Richard Heeks, Manchester University, Aleksej Heinze, Salford University, Chris Holland, Manchester Business School, Peter Kawalek, Manchester Business School, Ann Latham, University of Wolverhampton, Ben Light, Queensland University of Technology, Diana Limburg, Oxford Brooks University, John Maccarthy, University of Limerick, Rob Macredie, Brunel University, Rachel Mclean, Liverpool John Moores University, Julie Mcleod, University of Northumbria, Rosa Michaelson, Dundee University, Mike Newman, Manchester Business School, Nathalie Mitev, London School of Economics, Savvas Papagiannidis, Newcastle University, Ray Paul, Brunel University, Gelareh Roushan, Bournemouth University, Carsten Sørensen, London School of Economics, John Ward, Cranfield University, Teresa Waring, University of Northumbria

SUBMISSIONS:
Full papers should be of 5000-8000 words.
Short papers including concept papers, position papers and research-in-progress will also be considered and should be between 1500-2000 words. UKAIS actively encourages submissions from early researchers and early researcher group submissions.

All papers should be formatted using the UKAIS 2014 conference template which is available at http://www.ukais.org.uk/UKAIS/Downloads.aspx (available shortly)

All papers should be submitted through EasyChair which can be accessed at : EasyChair Link (Available shortly)

If you have not used Easychair before, you will need to create an account. All authors should also submit a WORD version of their paper to UKAIS2014@gmail.com (link available shortly)

The paper title and authors’ names and contact details should appear on a cover sheet as should a clear indication of the topic areas for which the presenter is aiming. To facilitate the blind referring process the body of the paper should be presented anonymously, with the title at the head of each page. Each paper will receive a double peer review.

All accepted papers will appear in the published proceedings of the conference which will be ISBN registered and available internationally through publication in the official AIS electronic library.

Best papers will be considered for publication in a special section of the International Journal of Information Management (due for publication in 2015)

All additional information can be found on the UKAIS website at www.ukais.org